Pope Francis visit puts Republicans on the defensive

Back when John Paul II was pope, conservatives relished attacking Democrats as “Cafeteria Catholics” for picking and choosing the church teachings that fit their politics. In 2004, the archbishop of St. Louis warned John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, “not to present himself for communion” because of his support for abortion rights. That cycle, the conservative Sioux Falls bishop ordered Tom Daschle to stop describing himself as a member of the Catholic Church, a breathtaking directive that Republicans used in their campaign to topple the then-Senate minority leader.

With a new pope, the shoe is on the other foot. Francis is a change agent who has de-emphasized traditional concerns like contraception, abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research. The Argentine has spent much of his two-and-a-half years at the helm pressing issues that make conservatives uncomfortable.

Pope Francis arrives at the Hill of the Cross in Holguin, Cuba, on Monday. The Associated Press

Top Democrats privately hope that Francis’s trip to the United States, which begins Tuesday, will make Republican leaders squirm as much as possible. Six Republican presidential candidates are Catholic: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum and George Pataki. The challenge for them is showing the pope respect while distinguishing the moral realm from the political one, a delicate balancing act practiced by Democrats since John F. Kennedy.

Here are seven of the major issues on which Pope Francis differs from most Republican politicians:

• He wants to open Cuba. His Vatican played a central behind-the-scenes role in last year’s secret U.S.-Cuba negotiations. Long before he was elevated to the papacy, with a book he wrote in the ’90s, Francis spoke out against the American embargo. Visiting Cuba this weekend, he praised the thaw between the two long-estranged neighbors as “an example of reconciliation for the entire world” that “fills us with hope.”

• He strongly backs immigration reform. The pope has decried the “inhuman” conditions that migrants face coming to the U.S. from Mexico, and he’s prodded Europe to accept more Syrian refugees. “I expect that Francis, in his address to Congress, will challenge our national conscience on immigration and remind us of the growing human toll resulting from our indifference and failures of political will,” Jose H. Gomez, the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Catholic community, writes in an op-ed for Monday’s Wall Street Journal. “In calling Americans to compassion and hospitality, he will also be calling us to reclaim our roots as a nation of immigrants and a refuge for the world’s downtrodden.”

• He calls for aggressive climate change action. The pope issued a 184-page encyclical on climate change this summer, saying humans are mostly to blame. “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” he said, describing global warming as “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”

• He supports the Iran nuclear deal. Last week, at the International Atomic Energy Agency conference in Vienna, the Vatican’s foreign minister praised President Obama’s agreement, saying that “the way to resolve disputes and difficulties should always be that of dialogue and negotiation.”

• He recognizes Palestinian statehood. The Vatican signed a May treaty that was widely criticized by Jewish leaders in both Israel and the U.S.

• He talks about income inequality more than even the Democratic presidential candidates. Francis spent decades pastoring in the slums. “Inequality is the root of social evil,” Francis says. He decries “trickle-down theories” as a “structurally perverse economic system.” Visiting Bolivia this summer, the pope called the unfettered pursuit of money “the dung of the devil.” He says the problems of the poor should be “radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation.”

• A devotee of social justice, this pope has repeatedly urged more public assistance for the poor. “Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation,” Francis wrote in a 2013 exhortation. “I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor! It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

The pope will have several opportunities this week to weigh in on these hot-button issues. Vatican officials have telegraphed that he will be “frank but friendly.” Francis arrives at Andrews on Tuesday at 4 p.m., marking the first time ever he will set foot on American soil. On Wednesday, he meets with President Obama at 9:15 a.m. After a parade, he addresses the U.S. Bishops Conference and then performs a mass of canonization for Junipero Serra. On Thursday, he addresses a joint session of Congress at 9:20 a.m. On Friday, he speaks to the United Nations at 8:30 a.m. On Sunday, he could offer support for criminal justice reform during a visit to a Pennsylvania prison.

What the 78-year-old will say is always unpredictable, but the vast majority of Catholics support his meddling in public policy. Two-thirds of American Catholics said in a Washington Post-ABC poll that it’s appropriate during his congressional address for the Pope to urge action on social, economic and environmental issues. Only 13 percent of Catholics want the pope to be less active on such issues, compared to 30 percent who wish he was more active and 52 percent who want him to stay the course. Our poll found that only 55 percent of U.S. adults view the Catholic Church favorably, but 70 percent see Francis positively. Two-thirds of Americans, and an even higher 89 percent of self-identifying Catholics, approve of the direction in which Francis is leading the church. Only 13 percent of Catholics disapprove.

Watch for escalating backlash to Francis from the right.

• George F. Will, who often praised John Paul II for his role in helping win the Cold War, ripped the new pope’s “fact-free flamboyance” in a Sunday column.

• Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who calls himself “a proud Catholic,” announced plans last week to boycott the joint session because of Francis’s “fool’s errand of climate change.” He wrote in an op-ed column that he has “a moral obligation” to “call out” the leader of his church and urges Francis to instead discuss religious freedom or the sanctity of human life.

• Chris Christie on Sunday criticized the pope’s support for engagement with Cuba. “I just think the pope was wrong,” he said. “The fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters, not on political ones.”

• Donald Trump was asked Sunday about the pope’s criticism of people who worship money. “If he knew me,” The Donald quipped, “I think he’d probably like me.”

• Jeb Bush said in June: “I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope.”

• Rick Santorum as been less nuanced. “It’s sometimes very difficult to listen to the pope and some of the things he says off the cuff,” he complained earlier this year.

• Matt Drudge, the most influential curator on the right, slammed Francis as a hypocrite: He tweeted:

“A prayer for those locked up in cruel Cuba this morning for dissent, as pope basks in glow of adulation from masses.”

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